


The White Lady of Casterly Rock

by Sookiestark



Series: Ghost Stories of Westeros [11]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Casterly Rock, F/M, Ghosts, House Lannister
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-05
Updated: 2017-11-10
Packaged: 2019-01-30 00:05:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12642036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sookiestark/pseuds/Sookiestark
Summary: A glimpse of Joanna haunting Casterly Rock.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [a_lady](https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_lady/gifts).



> So.. This is a two part story. The first part is Tywin POV. The second part is Joanna's. It was harder than I thought to write this.. The second part is almot finished (just not sad enough but hopefully it will be done in a few hours..)
> 
> This is showverse-
> 
> A big shout out to a_lady who is an avid reader and a big fan of the Lannisters. Thanks for all your comments!! I hope you like this--

Tywin Lannister first learned about the White Lady of Casterly Rock from his eight year old daughter. She had interrupted his morning meal, escaping from her Septa, bursting in his solar, to tell him that the kitchen girls were liars. He had smiled at her righteous anger and told her she should not interrupt her father. After reprimanding her, he had held his arms out to her and she had come to sit on his lap. 

She had told him the story of how some of the kitchen girls spoke of a ghost lady that rose at night and wandered the halls of Casterly Rock. However, Cersei had stayed up late for five nights and had not seen anything. She seemed very distressed about the girls lying to her and wanted them beat for their lies. Tywin had stroked her hair and soothed her, telling her that they could not beat the servants because they believe in ghost stories and superstitions. If that was the case, all the smallfolk of the westerlands would need beat and Tywin would have a very sore arm. 

She had started to cry and he had tried to soothe her. In a jumble of words and tears, Cersei went on to say that most of the servants believed it was the ghost of her mother, because she was most often seen at her grave or in the hallway around her bedchamber, or in the nursery with the baby. At this, Tywin pulled back to look at her face and consider what she said. Were the servants saying Joanna was still among them?

Cersei looked into her father’s eyes and wiped her eyes with her sleeve. “If Mother was going to visit anyone, wouldn’t she come to see me? And I haven’t seen her at all…”

At this moment, Jaime walked through the door that Cersei had burst in earlier. He seemed hesitant to approach his father and stood a respectful distance from the pair. Jaime seemed worried that his father might be disappointed that he had been lurking outside in the hallway or that he had run away from the Maester to play with his twin. 

Tywin had looked at his son. “Jaime, what do you think about all this talk among the servants? Should they be beaten? Are they making up stories?”

Jaime looked up at his father and Tywin saw a young Joanna in his son’s face, hopeful, dreamy, idealistic, prone to laughter and childish games. He almost smiled to see her so clearly in the face of their son. “Father, I do not know who or what I saw.. But I definitely saw a mist or a shadow while I was visiting with Tyrion before bed. When it passed near the nursery, I swear I smelled lavender and mother’s perfume.”

Cersei started screaming that Jaime was a liar as well. Tywin calmed the children and sent Cersei back to her Septa and Jaime to the Maester to continue his reading lessons. He spent most of the day with it in the back of his thoughts, wondering if Joanna was still at Casterly Rock and if she was, why had he not seen her? Why had she not come to him?

He was not a man given to flights of fancy or superstions. Joanna had always been the one for a good ghost story or a folk charm. The reason she was dead was because of a stupid fortune teller telling her some silly fortune that the third child would be the one to carry on the Lannister name. 

Tywin had been there at the end of her life, as she had bled out on the fine linen sheets of her bed. She had clutched the small bundle to her breast and smiled at her husband. “He is a small thing, Tywin, but he will be the future of Casterly Rock. Maggy told me so.”

He had smiled at her, as she had grabbed at his hand squeezing tightly, making him promise to care for the baby.. Surely the Maester would be able to stop all this blood. After all, she had given birth to twins, big, healthy beautiful babies and been fine. How could this tiny malformed thing cause so much blood? 

He was not the kind of man to believe in fanciful things, like fortune telling, love at first sight, good luck charms, or ghost stories. But Joanna believed in all those things. She threw salt over her shoulder to keep away bad luck and kept the love charm she had made when she was thirteen with a piece of Tywin's long blonde hair.  
Before he left back to King’s Landing, she had asked for a piece of his hair and he had cut it. He was sixteen and completely in love with her. She had made the love charm in front of him, breathless with joy and the darkness of his green eyes. He had told her this was foolish, old wives tales, but he had watched her make it all the same, with her hair and a pinch of cinnamon, paper with some words, his hair and her kiss. He had grabbed her hand, when she was done and asked, “What will it do to me, gentle witch?”

She had laughed and said, “ Tywin Lannister, you will love only me all of your days. You will never be untrue and you will laugh whenever I ask.”

He had pulled he in his arms, uncertain of all the things he must do once she was there. She was no help to him. He had taken a breath and touched her hair, keeping one arm firmly around her back, “All of those are things that I will comply with, except maybe the laughter. I don’t want to appear foolish, like father.”

She had laughed at him then, “It is an enchantment, Tywin. You don’t get to pick and choose. I am the witch and it is how I command.”

He had kissed her hard and when they had stopped, he had laughed. She always made him feel like laughing. 

He even let her put it under the foot of their mattress, after they were wed. Laughing, she had said it would make him never stray.

He had never even looked at another woman. Not from the minute, he noticed her until the day she die. Tywin had made only two promises in his life. One was that House Lannister would never be laughed at again. The other was he would marry Joanna. He had done both. 

He walked to the nursery to investigate further. Tywin had made sure the baby she had named Tyrion was given a nurse and a wet nurse, a spot in the nursery, an allowance for his care, and he never made it back to check on the thing that was his son. 

It was winter when Joanna died. It had already been winter for one whole year and there was no end in sight. They couldn’t break the ground to bury her, so Lord Tywin Lannister had had a crypt built for her in the garden, where she could be surrounded by the flowers and hear the roar of the sea, and still be laid to rest. Of course, there was no flowers, just flurries of snow and hail stones.

It was still winter. When he reached the nursery, the wet nurse was feeding his son, the son that had taken his Joanna. The wet nurse was a common girl, but pretty with long, blonde hair. For a moment, he had thought he had stumbled upon Joanna’s ghost. He had flustered the girl and she did not know if she needed to stand or keep feeding the baby. The baby had seemed a chubby thing. In one of his fists, he held tight to one of the girl’s strands of hair, as she sang to him. 

“Excuse me milord.” 

“No need to get up.. How is he?”

“Tyrion is a wonderful baby. He sleeps through the night and he plays and understands some words. He is good and smart.”

“What is your name?”

“Bella, milord.”

“Have you seen anything unusual, Bella?” 

“No, milord. I mean .. Lady Dorna has usually come by now to visit with the little lord and his brother tries to make it in the morning and before bed.”

“Jaime comes to see him twice a day. Who else comes to see him?”

“Well, Lord Gerion comes at least three times a week to tell stories and Lord Jaime tries to be here for that...Lady Dorna comes everyday. Lord Kevan comes once a week to check on his health and to see how he is progressing.” 

He had not realized that Tyrion had had so many guests. Jaime came twice a day. His eldest boy was too kind hearted and took after his mother with his dreams and his romantic notions. “But you have seen nothing unnatural?”

“Are you talking about the white lady, the ghost lady in the nursery? No, milord. I haven’t seen anything or felt anything.”

“Of course not.” He looked at her, as she fed the baby.  
Tywin could not believe he had come all this way because of his children and superstition. He walked back to his rooms and undressed for bed. He reached under the foot of his bed and found the charm Joanna had made all those years ago. He held the weight of it, consideing his options. It was solid in his hand. He tossed it in the fire and went to sleep, thinking of how soon he could get Jaime fostered..


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, Joanna didn't want to be too sad. She thought it would be better if she was strong and slightly confused. I really like the idea of her as Joanna the protective poltergeist.. Throwing crowns and scaring the Unsullied.

She had seen them raise the marble and stone of her mausoleum and wandered through the snowstorm. Joanna had seen Cersei and Jaime, spinning in circles, trying to catch snowflakes on their tongue. She had seen workmen, struggle with wagons in the snow. She never saw Tywin come to visit her after it was built, just the first day. After they lay her bones, they sealed the door carved with lions and angels. Tywin Lannister stood in the middle of the snow staring at the closed door, until it grew dark. 

 

Joanna gets lost in her memories, wandering the halls of Casterly Rock. She finds herself in the Hall of Heroes most of the time. There is her father’s armor from the Ninepenny War, Tyland Lannister’s pin as Hand of the King, the sword of Ser Tywald, who was knighted while dying in his twin’s arms. There are crowns and shields and swords. Occasionally there is a hairpin or a necklace of some lady or queen. She chuckles to see the emerald ring of hers with two stone, given to her on the birth of the twins. She is no hero. 

She runs her ghostly fingers over each piece, counting her place. She has no idea how long she has been here, or even if time exists at all. She floats through Casterly Rock like a ship adrift at sea, unmoored and drifting through her memories and her remembrances.

For a time, she spent most of the time in the nursery with her baby, Tyrion. He seemed forgotten with her death. Without her voice, her love, he was a duty, a task, an unpleasantness. As if Tywin had forgotten how she had begged him for another baby for over a year. The Maester had told her the twins had been difficult and she shouldn’t have more children or she could die. She had pleaded with him for one more. “Our lives are perfect,” he had whispered into her ear surrounded by her golden hair, 

Maggy had said their third child would be the most like Tywin, the Hand of the King the Warden of the West, the one to keep the name going, to keep a Lannister in the Rock. Tywin had scoffed at her and told her she should not believe flights of fancy, superstitions. However, he relented. After all he could refuse her nothing, and soon enough her belly grew as did their son within. 

After she visits with her baby, she joins Tywin in bed. She kisses his neck, his lips, his forehead, anywhere she can reach. His muscles are tight and she can feel the stress drain away under her ghostly fingers. She tells him of her days, as he sleeps, and whispers how much she still loves him in his ears. Sometimes, he smiles in his sleep, as if he can hear her in his dreams. It makes her long to be of substance again and feel his skin and heat against hers. 

One night, she goes to her chambers to visit her husband. She finds him awake and in front of a roaring fire. He looks slightly distraught and in his hands, she sees the love charm she made for him so many years ago. Joanna sees the grief in his eyes and wonders if all those nightly visits had increased his grief and loneliness. She feels the tears on her cheeks and kisses him, stone faced and still.

Joanna leans in and whispers in his ear, “Throw it in the fire and let me go…” 

She expects to turn to ash and disappear, to go wherever ghosts go when they leave the world. After all, she must be here for him and when he lets her go, she will be able to leave and go to the light and the afterlife.

He tosses it in the fire, but nothing happens to her. She remains, still at Casterly Rock, still an apparition. Tywin, on the other hand, changes. He becomes cold and stops smiling. He begins bringing women in their bed. The first is Bella, her baby’s nurse. When she goes to visit him and finds her in the bed, mewling like a cat in heat, naked and him on top of her, she never returns. 

Every night, she visits with her baby. It is easy to visit with him because he doesn’t get many visitors, Sometimes she will curl up in the corner, while Gerion tickles him or reads him stories of faraway places, dragons and knights of old. Dorna, Kevan’s wife, sweet, devout Dorna, comes with her prayers and her good intentions and teaches him to pray and love the Seven. She hugs and kisses him and has her say a prayer for his mother who gave her life to bring him into this world. 

Tyrion is five and longs to be loved. For Gerion, he learns all the names of the dragons, and knights. For Dorna he learns all his prayers and practices them until he knows the by heart. He is good to his nurse, Bella and she loves him. However, Joanna cannot get the image of her naked in her bed out of her thoughts. Joanna likes to move Bella’s things, so she cannot find them. She whispers beneath her bed at night and Bella leaves Casterly Rock before Tyrion’s fourth nameday saying the nursery is haunted.

There are days she feels as old as the Rock itself, as if she is timeless like the walls itself. There are other days all the slights real and imagined all the hurts of her life come back to her, fresh bleeding raw. When her brother pushed her as a child, the first time Aerys pressed her against a wall and whispered things in her ear, the rumors, the lies, the truths that she never spoke. Of course, none of that matters now. Rumours, honor, infidelity. Whether it was true or not, it matters not. She is dead. Only her children remain. Only the future of the Lannisters and Casterly Rock. 

She wonders where the children are and what has happened to them. She imagines they must have grown up and moved out of the nursery. Once or twice, there are small blonde children in Casterly Rock. She knows they are Cersei’s and they are called Prince and Princess. It makes her smile to think how Tywin married Cersei to Rhaegar. The little girls named Myrcella and she spends a whole night kissing her and stroking her hair, though she wishes it was silver like Rhaella. 

Casterly Rock gets strangely empty. Dorna is still here in the Sept with only her daughter, Janei. Kevan and his sons leave and never return. Stafford and his sons leave and never return. Tywin and Tyrion and Jaime leave and she does not see anyone for so long. She starts to forget them and is only a shade herself. Something to give the household staff chills. 

There is a war or several wars. A fever comes and takes Dorna’s baby, Janei. She takes the little girl’s spirit and shows her the light and the way to the other side. The little girl is troubled by her mother’s crying, “I want to stay with Mama and make her not feel so bad.” 

Joanna hugs the girl and brushes her white blonde hair from her eyes. “Baby, your Mama wants you to go to the light. Be a good girl and go on.” 

Joanna thinks about following the girl, but has a sense her time is not yet. Casterly Rock needs her. 

One day, in the Hall of Heroes, she notices a golden crown in the shape of stag antlers on a dias next to Loren the Last’s golden lion one. It is an ugly, sad thing and it makes her want to throw it across the room, so she does.The guard flees telling stories of a ghostly force that threw the King’s crown. Sometimes she moves it, leaving it in other places, to see the servants scurry around looking for the valuable thing. They have guards to watch it, but she still moves it.

Two sets of armor, and two portraits are hung of strange boys, though the younger of the two looks like her Jaime. The armor has never been used; it is a decoration. Joanna does not like the artifice here in her Hall of Heroes. With the strange armor and the crown comes her daughter, Cersei. She sees her daughter and she tries to touch her and kiss her, but her face is as cold as her marble grave. Cersei doesn’t even stay the night at Casterly Rock.

 

Joanna is angry at these new inclusions and in her anger, throws several objects, causing the guard to run from the room. She knocks over the armor and it makes a terrible racket as it hits the floor It is then she notices there is a new set of armor and a huge gold cloak. Above it is a picture of her husband. Tywin has died and yet he has not come to collect her. He is not here in Casterly Rock, but she is. Suddenly, this makes no sense. She had always thought she was here to wait for him. She wails and rips tapestries. No one sleeps for three days over the ghostly wailing. 

On the morning of the fourth day, the steward, a young blonde man, who is not Kevan or anyone she has ever, met comes to the Hall of Heroes and speaks to the air, as he straightens the antiques. She knows he is speaking to her and she is grateful for the company. He tells her that he is sure she is upset to hear that both her grandsons, the Kings are dead. Both died tragically, like her husband. He doesn’t tell her how or why or where they are. He speaks in secrets as if she can see all. She cannot even see outside Casterly Rock. He tells her that it must be hard for her, but that they will join her soon. They never come. 

He tells her that Cersei is Queen and Jaime is her closest advisor. She is glad they have each other. One night, fluttering by the portraits, she sees the younger boy’s likeness to Jaime and has a sick feeling. She goes to the ramparts and scares the guards in her troubled thoughts, hoping that she is wrong. One pisses himself in fear and even that doesn't give her joy, she is troubled.

Around this time, Dorna gets sick. Joanna stays by her bed and waits for her good sister and company. She whispers words of comfort and tells her that she will be safe in Dornan's ear. The fever finally takes her. Even though Joanna waits for Dorna, Dorna’s spirit never comes. Perhaps, she went straight to the afterlife. Perhaps.

Sometime later, a foreign army invades the Rock. Of course, they were able to. No one has been here in so long to defend it to care for it. Just her and the household staff. She is furious at these invaders and the foreign language they speak. She throws plates and sours milk. She moans and cries to interrupt their sleep. They don’t stay long. Joanna is glad to see them leave. The steward goes to the Hall of Heroes and the nursery and thanks her for helping him make their invaders stay as unpleasant as possible. He calls her the Hero of Casterly Rock. Perhaps, she is here to protect her family, their claim, her Casterly Rock.

More time passes, Joanna stops moving the golden stag crown. It is a boring game and the steward comes to talk with her every night with a glass of wine and tell her of the castle repairs and his upcoming marriage to a cousin. They have become old friends, both forgotten stewards of House Lannister. She wonders what could be so important that none of her children have come home in so long. Perhaps, they are all dead and she is the only one left.

A Valyrian sword, a white cloak, and a silver set of armor comes to the Hall of Heroes. A portrait of her eldest son is hung behind it. In golden leaf, it says Jaime Lannister, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, Hero in the Second Battle for the Dawn. She allows herself to weep for her boy. He was all his father wanted, a knight that wielded a Valyrian steel sword, that protected his King, that was a true hero of old.

Slowly, she notices activity in the other parts of the castle.There is more staff. There are more people. One day, new babies are in the nursery with golden hair and green eyes, twin boys. She hears there is a new Lady Lannister of Casterly Rock. The steward grumbles to her about Lord Tywin rolling in his grave over the new Lord of Casterly Rock, Tyrion Lannister. She is glad to know all will be well as long as the Lannisters continue. She sings to the babies and rock them in their cradle. The household staff speak to her now, like she is some good-natured household fairy. 

Joanna does not care. She is glad to have babies back in the nursery, glad to Lannisters living among her. She cannot believe she did not notice them for so long. She has been a spirit so long she is starting to forget to pay attention to the living. She notices one of the pictures of Cersei’s son has been taken down, but the armor remains. 

She allows herself to go the chambers of the Lord of Casterly Rock. She has not been here in ages, since Tywin burned their love charm. Joanna finds the way familiar to her, a matter of habit, even after all this time. She hesitates at the door, as if she considered knocking and floats into the room. 

Her youngest is there sitting at his father’s desk. The years have not been kind to him and he looks tired and scarred. Behind him, in his bed, is a beautiful woman, very pregnant with another child for the nursery. He has almost fallen asleep, but his eyes open when she enters the room.

“Cersei…,” he sounds afraid. She smiles at him and realizes he would never recognize her, as they have never met in life. She drifts back to her watch of the castle and her family's safety. 

Time must pass. There are new children in the nursery, her grandchildren’s children. She does not mind that not all of them have hair of gold. They are hers. They will continue the Lannisters. They will live and thrive. Maggy was right. Tyrion was necessary for the survival of House Lannister and Casterly Rock. 

Days pass like years and years pass in moments. One sunny day, she sees her son. He comes to her in the Hall of Heros. His grandchildren have begun to place the axe he used when he fought at Blackwater Bay, the pin of the Hand of the Queen he wore for over a decade, a set of golden grapes to show that he has become quite the vintner. 

He comes behind her, “Mother.”

She turns and looks at him. “Tyrion.” and she hugs him. He is so much older than she ever was when she lived. He must be in his seventies. 

“You are so beautiful. I never knew how much Myrcella looked like you. “

Joanna smiles. It has been so long since she has tried speaking, she is afraid she has it wrong. She has forgotten so much, but he still remembers what it means to be alive. He is newly dead. 

They sit in the Hall of Heroes for awhile, maybe hours, maybe days. A thin young blonde hair boy directs some servants to hang a picture of Tyrion in the Hall. Tyrion shakes his head. “I made them promise to not hang a portrait, a noseless dwarf in the Hall of Heroes.”

Underneath the plaque says Tyrion Lannister, Giant of House Lannister, Hand of the Queen, Lord of Casterly Rock, Hero of the Battle for the Dawn.  
“That is Gerion, he is my grandson. He is second son but he reminds me the most of father. He is joyless, too serious.” 

She looks at the boy. He is tall and well formed with the golden hair and a strong jaw. Intelligent green eyes stare out intensely, seriously. This boy will be the future. The Rock will be safe.

“He looks like your father. Your father was not joyless. He was my love. Do not speak ill of the dead,” Joanna speaks, teasing him.

He looks at her questioning and she wonders if she has forgotten how to tell a joke. She may have made some horrible mistake of etiquette or language. He laughs heartily and she laughs with him. She takes his hand in hers. 

“Do I have to stay in this old form?” 

“No, you can choose how you would like to look. Concentrate.”

In a moment, he is a young man in his twenties with a nose. He touches it and says, “Hello, old friend.”

“Where is everyone?” he asks.

“I don’t know. But you are here and so am I,” she says.

She wonders if she will show him where the light is, and if she will show him how to leave. Maybe, they will go together this time and let Casterly Rock protect its own. Make room for new ghosts. Perhaps. Or maybe, she likes it here, as timeless as the stone of Casterly Rock.


End file.
